Chapter 6 #2
My heart sinks at the quiet acceptance in his voice. “No bright light at the end of a tunnel?”
“No light. Not for me,” he answers with certainty.
It feels like we’re in our own little pocket of the world, sealed off.
I finish my meal quickly, self-conscious about eating in front of someone who can’t.
When I’m done, I rinse the bowl and wipe the counter until the kitchen gleams with that clean, lived-in order that brings me peace. Then I move to the living room.
The sofa creaks softly under my weight as I settle with my sketchbook on my knees. Lady jumps up beside me and curls into a perfect spiral, her steady purring filling the silence.
The tip of my charcoal moves almost on its own.
Lines begin to take shape. A jaw, clean and defined.
The faint shadow beneath high cheekbones.
The delicate curve of lips caught between serenity and defiance.
I smudge and blur, deepening the contrast around the hollow of the neck and the slope of the nose.
The man’s hair falls in loose, layered strands, captured with quick, uneven strokes. The eyes come last, almost too alive for the page, but there’s a stillness in them that unsettles me.
After a while, E jolts me out of my reverie. “Is that your guy?” he asks, his voice farther away than it was—guarded, even.
I blink and examine the portrait, the strong planes of the face, the wavy hair that falls past his suspiciously pointed ears… “No.”
“Who is he, then?”
I trace the handsome, impossible features. I have no clue who it’s supposed to be. A chill runs down my spine. I tear off the page, crumple it, and toss it into the trash. “No one in particular.”
“What’s he like—your fiancé? How did you two meet?” E asks.
“Oh, we met three months ago, at work. He’s an architect, and the hospital hired him to renovate the surgical suites. He asked me to go to dinner, and we fell in love.”
“That’s…nice.”
There’s an awkward pause. I feel like I’m rubbing in the fact that I’m alive and he’s not.
“Mabel thinks I’m being na?ve—that it must have been an archer who matched us up. A Spring Fae. She doesn’t believe it’s true love.” My voice sounds thin and brittle at the admission.
Mabel’s never been shy about her opinions. If something bad happened to her, our last conversation would have been an argument about why I shouldn’t marry a mortal.
When I met Lachlan, I fell for him instantly and denied Mabel’s claims that I had been manipulated by an archer.
Mostly, I was grateful that someone like him—so well-mannered, blue-blooded, successful, and handsome—would look twice at me.
I wanted to start a family, to have somewhere to belong that didn’t include the threat of impending death and destruction, to be free from the life of hide-and-seek witches wrestle with.
I wanted out, but now, I’m not sure there is an out.
And judging by Devi’s gaze when I told her about the wedding, I probably am the foolish young woman Kerri and Mabel thought I was. Oh, Devi held her tongue when I told her about Lachlan, but I could see the pity on her face. The doubts.
She all but confirmed it wasn’t going to last.
“Who does Mabel want you to marry? A male witch?” E asks in jest.
A bitter giggle scrapes my throat. “Male witches don’t really exist. I think Mabs would be happier if I stayed single for the rest of time. She didn’t have such good marriages.”
“Where does your brother fit in, if male witches don’t exist?” he asks. “Is he adopted?”
I nod. “Oh, Nickolas is a bit of an anomaly. My mother had twins—”
The moment the words leave my mouth, regret follows. I shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have spoken so freely about Nick. I need to be more careful going forward, or I’ll end up babbling away every family secret.
“Witches only have girls when they give birth in the Red Forest, and any males born outside of it don’t have any power,” I add quickly.
He doesn’t need to know my brother was the only male born in the Red Forest in…ever.
“And your father?”
I wave dismissively, eager to change the subject. “We have no idea who he is.”
My phone buzzes, providing a welcome distraction, and I pull it out of my pocket. The image that appears on the screen is a rather risqué photo of my fiancé in his hotel bed.
“Shite.” My spine stiffens, and I press the phone to my chest. “I need a moment alone. Wait for me upstairs, alright? I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”
“As you wish.”
There’s a dark undertone in that agreement I don’t care to dwell on. I toy with my cuff earring, waiting for E’s bite of power to fade, then clear my throat and dial Lachlan’s number.
“Hey, gorgeous. I miss you like crazy.”
I press my lips together, summoning the courage to spin yet another lie. “Me, too. Mabel’s doing well, but she’s going to need full-time care for the next few days—maybe longer. I think I should stay with her over the weekend.”
“But we have a wedding to plan.” His voice goes quiet. Distant.
He’s angry.
“I know. It blows, but most of the planning is already done,” I say quickly. “Next week, everything will go back to normal.”
I hear the falsehood in my own delusions, but I can’t bring myself to postpone the wedding, not yet. There might still be time to find a way out, a solution. Mabel might still come home and take care of the monsters.
But even then…
How can you marry Lachlan when he has no idea who you truly are? When you know he would never believe the truth? my inner critic asks. This relationship was doomed from the start.
It’s not like I haven’t had doubts before now, but it’s the first time I’ve actually listened to that voice. The first time I wonder if I’m even allowed to drag this beautiful man and his perfectly normal family into my fucked-up world.
“Mother had to pull strings to get our choreographer. You missing last night’s rehearsal already piqued her enough. Imagine what she’ll say when I tell her the bride will be MIA for the weekend. Do you want to give her a heart attack? Can’t we just hire a nurse?”
“I told you, Mabel is a very private person. She hates strangers.”
“What about me, Max? My boss invited us over to his house for dinner on Friday. It won’t make sense for my fiancée not to be there. Let me hire a nurse for the night. Mabel won’t know the difference.”
My mouth opens and closes as I struggle to find an angle he won’t argue against. “She took me in when nobody wanted me. I owe her this.”
“You’re a grown adult, and she’s holding you back from the life you ought to live. You don’t owe her anything.”
We argue back and forth for a while, enough for a languid ache to take hold of my heart, and tears glaze my eyes. I’ve been working so hard to prove to the world that our romance could work, and I let many things slide, mainly his disdain for my foster family.
It’s probably my own fault.
Most of my lies have described Mabel as an eccentric old hermit.
I might have overdone it and painted her in such a poor light that he can’t understand how I feel.
But no matter what I said to excuse her quirks, she’s still family.
If she were truly sick, there’d be no question of hiring a nurse.
I summon the righteous anger I need to deny his suggestion, but guilt gnaws at me.
We’re fighting over a make-believe story, a band-aid I put over a leaking, bloody mess of a situation.
But what other choice do I have?
You could tell him the truth, my conscience whispers.
My eyes screw shut. I could tell him the truth about me, my family, my blood. But I can’t pretend not to know how that would end. If I told Lachlan about monsters, ghosts, and Fae, he’d never look at me the same again. And he wouldn’t want to marry me anymore.